


a time to mourn

by ThreadSketchier



Series: Glimpses [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Loss, if you didn't already guess from the title, when the past literally comes back to haunt you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 07:00:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18987622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThreadSketchier/pseuds/ThreadSketchier
Summary: Lando returns to Cloud City.  Of course, it's not just people that were left behind.





	a time to mourn

**Author's Note:**

> I felt that Memorial Day was a fitting time to post the final installment in this series.

With the Empire’s head severed and its limbs in disarray, many turning against each other in the ensuing power vacuum, the Rebel Alliance – now the Alliance of Free Planets – was also experiencing a turmoil of disagreements, as conscience and principle wrestled with pragmatism.  The Battle of Endor had been costly on the fleet, and securing new allies and their supplies, as well as taking advantage of the Empire’s weakening influence, became the greater priorities over liberating oppressed worlds. Patience was required, it was said, for gaining a foothold in the Core and taking strides toward legitimizing the Alliance into a true government would go much further in relieving the galaxy of the Empire’s grip.

That was a sensible goal – just not one that Lando felt particularly beholden to in this moment.

_ I was responsible to the people of Cloud City long before I was in command of your forces _ , he’d told the brass.   _ And I’d be happy to continue to do so.  But I had no intentions of leaving my facility in the Empire’s hands any longer than I had to.  You’d also stand to gain a safe haven and an intelligence source, but I’m sure not everyone was able to escape, and I’m not leaving them behind now that I’ve met my immediate obligations. _

_ I’m aware I’m not calling the shots here.  But I’m calling them anyway _ .

And he’d walked out of the conference room, expecting nothing, already planning on calling in favors from old contacts who might be willing to pitch in if they could have some stake in the deal.  He’d had no intentions of asking  _ them _ to help him, not after what they’d gone through.

Trouble was, Luke was a Jedi now, which meant even a sabacc face couldn’t hide much from him.

“I have some unfinished business,” Lando tried to leave it at.

Luke appraised him in that almost unnervingly compassionate way of his.  “You’re going back to Bespin.”

Immediately Lando held up a hand to stop him.  “Look, I can’t ask this of you – ”

“Yes you can,” he retorted firmly.  “Because it wasn’t you who hurt us. You were faced with a no-win situation and you did what you thought was best at the time.  If you’d known, Lando…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “And even if you did, you had all those lives to weigh against ours.  People you didn’t even know, and a couple of old friends.” He smiled sadly. “All of us have lost our homes. Alderaan is dust, and my homestead is ashes.  At least you can still go back. You really think we wouldn’t want to help you?”

Pain and sadness were for suckers, he used to think.  Showing them gained you nothing; if you were cheated, outwit them back, and everything was better with a smile and a swig of fine liquor.  But Luke’s words left him feeling raw. He hadn’t allowed himself to mourn Cloud City for many reasons – he hadn’t been the one tortured or sold or maimed, and grieving meant the Empire had won and he wasn’t going to fight back and reclaim it someday.  It wasn’t even grief that overtook him now in the strictest sense, since it wasn’t an end, but a chance at a new beginning. But being confronted with this acceptance, this kind of unquestioning loyalty, from someone who’d suffered greatly because of his ignorance and ill-fated attempt at insulating himself from the war…

Luke put an arm around his shoulders and turned him back down the corridor to walk alongside him.  “C’mon, we’ll tell the others,” he said, his tone gently encouraging.

*

The halls were just as bright and vacant as Luke remembered them, and eerie in their silence after the battle, though thickened with far more smoke and blaster ozone than last time.  It was almost a relief – it rendered them less sterile. Less deceptive of the darkness concealed behind and underneath its pristine white walls.

That darkness wasn’t intrinsic, he had to remind himself.  This was just a mining facility and pleasure resort. It wasn’t Lando’s or anyone else’s fault the Empire had descended here and left their taint like a carbon score that couldn’t quite be scrubbed out.

The compulsion to retrace his steps gnawed at him, even as his most primal fears bade him to ignore the urge.  There was nothing left here but memories, ones he didn’t need to dredge up. He’d forgiven his father, and his father was gone, and he had survived his own trial with the Dark Side.

Luke found himself walking the path anyway, sweat gathering on his left palm.

As dim and foreboding as it had been the first time, the carbonite freezing chamber hummed with the same deep vibrations of dormant machinery, the kind of heavy, ringing quiet that poured into his ears like molten metal and solidified.  The hose he’d cut was repaired, and the pit lay open to receive another payload of tibanna gas.

Another victim.

Leia had stood and watched here while Han was lowered into that pit, just before he’d entered and met Vader.  Luke’s legs felt unsteady as he came down the stairs.

So many things could have gone even worse here.  Han could have perished from the freezing process.  He could have succumbed to it rather than being able to jump clear with the Force, and been carted away to the Emperor even sooner.  Leia or Chewie or Lando could have been killed in the ensuing firefight during their escape. He could have plummeted straight down the city’s core shaft right after being sucked out of the broken window, or not been caught by its vacuum currents on his second fall.  As nightmarish as this time and place turned out to be, it was a wonder they’d made it out alive and as fortunate as they could’ve been for the circumstances.

With his heart beating swiftly, Luke skirted around the edge of the pit and leapt down into the blackness, where he’d gone to pursue Vader and his own thirst for vengeance.

The only true sounds were the soft, echoing tread of his footsteps and the tremble of his breath, but he kept expecting to hear the snap-hiss of a lightsaber and the slow, harsh bellows of a respirator.  Despite the awareness of  _ when _ he was, his hand rested on the pommel of his own weapon.

The observation window was also replaced, once again a barrier between him and the gantry he’d been forced out onto, and all the equipment that had been ripped from the walls put back in their places.  No trace remained of their duel. It felt like a waking dream, or even a vision, a taunting artifice reestablished as if he had the chance to remake this encounter with new insight. If only he’d known.  If only.

Luke approached the window and pressed his palms against its cold surface, a grief so sudden and violent constricting his chest that he struggled to breathe.  Tears had been shed over his father’s death, but he’d been almost too numb with shock and insulated by the reassurance that Anakin had finally found peace in the Force to let himself be overcome.   _ This _ , now – this was too much.  Dwelling on the terrible fact that they’d come to blows here, that a man was so desperately twisted he could fight and wound his own son, and in ignorance he’d fought back in hatred, wishing nothing more than to kill him in return, when instead he could’ve grown under his care and knowledge and  _ love _ , when they could’ve shared their lives together…

But it was too late, and there was no going back for another chance.  “ _ Father _ ,” Luke whispered plaintively, gulping in air as tears spilled forth, leaning forward to rest his forehead against the pane.  Now he keenly felt the loss of his father, and of all the hostility and vast separation between them.

_ Father _ …

“Luke.”

The air spoke to him in the shape of his name, and at first Luke thought he imagined it over the wretched noise of his own crying.  Then a strange, prickling warmth spread across his back and upper arms, and encircled his right wrist, and the hair on his neck stood.

“ _ Luke _ ,” the voice said again, that of a young man wholly unfamiliar and yet  _ known _ to him, roughened with emotion.  The edges of his vision were filled with a gentle blue light.

Luke crumpled against the window and slid down to the floor, sobbing.  The spirit – Anakin, his  _ father _ – enveloped him in warmth, but offered no more words, because there were none.  Both of them mourned alike and together, reunited but still separated by the veil between life and death.

After some time Luke gasped out, “I wish…I wish you didn’t have to go.”

“I won’t, Luke,” Anakin promised.  “I never will.” The warmth touched his chest, over his heart.  “I’ll always be with you.”

“It’s not the same.”

“I know.”  There was a regretful wryness in his tone.  “I know it’s not. But it’s the truth. You’ll never be alone.  Wherever the Force is, I’ll be there too.” Anakin’s intangible fingers caressed his hair.  “And when it’s your time, I’ll be the first face you see.”

“Can I…will I see you again before that?”

Anakin smiled, a spark of some long-buried pain and love shining in his eyes.  “Of course.”

There were so many questions to ask, but now wasn’t the time for them.  Luke simply basked in the bittersweet comfort of his father’s presence and gave full vent to his sadness.

Later he wasn’t sure how much time passed, if it was only minutes or hours.  Tired and shaky, with his eyes swollen and throat aching, Luke wandered back until he re-emerged into the light, the daytime brilliance hurting his eyes at first.  Right outside the alcove surrounding the maintenance corridor that led to the freezing chamber stood the others, all looking worried and haunted. Leia’s face was pale and drawn, and for a moment Luke felt apologetic that he had done this, leaving them again to go ponder his own losses.  He wondered if she’d felt all of his anguish. She and Han already had enough of their own from this place.

Before he could say a word, though, they all gathered around him in a tangled embrace, except for Lando, who kept staring at the doorway.

“I’m sealing up this refinery,” he said, anger simmering beneath his quiet voice.  “Someday I might make it a memorial. People need to know what the Empire did here.”

Long after they’d all departed the area, Lando’s hand kept a firm grip on Luke’s shoulder, conveying remorse and anchoring him in camaraderie.

*

None of them wanted to spend the night in any of Cloud City’s suites; besides the fact that Lando and Lobot would need to rework the city’s security codes, they all knew they wouldn’t get a lick of sleep otherwise.  Between checking on civilians and working with the Ugnaughts to dispose of bodies and sort materiel for collection or recycling and assessing property damage, it was easy to avoid sleep altogether. But eventually Chewie was urging them to get at least a little rest before dawn, and they herded themselves into the  _ Falcon _ for both mental and physical respite.

Luke and Leia both kept eyeing Han as they watched him go back and forth through the ship several times carrying bedding materials into the cargo hold, then an armful of beers.  When he finally acknowledged their stares he said, “We’re hanging out in here tonight.”

They didn’t question him.  It’d become obvious pretty quickly that Han intended for the four of them to bed down in one space, and Chewie wasn’t going to fit in a cabin with three others, and Luke supposed Han felt it was unfair for him and Leia to share a bunk together off the deck.

They didn’t talk much between quaffing the beer, too weary and shaken in confronting the horror of their first time here and just content in the moment with their closeness.  Eventually another pair of boots rang slowly through the ship and Lando’s silhouette filled the hatchway, and Han waved a hand to invite him in.

After his third bottle Han glanced up at Leia and said, “Hey.  We’re getting married,” in a calmly casual manner, as if he meant to remind her of something trivial, but there was a nervous hope and vulnerability in his eyes.  Leia regarded him for a minute with a soft wonder that shifted into amusement. “I know,” she replied, deadpan. Luke snorted, feeling like he was missing something but appreciating the humor nonetheless.  Over Leia’s shoulder he could see Lando studying the two of them, something profound in his otherwise neutral expression.

A short while later Lando broke the silence again with an idle mutter.  “Need to modify the sensors in the core shaft. If anything else that isn’t refuse falls down there and winds up in the disposal chutes, I don’t want them hanging off the weather vanes.”

Luke craned his neck and half sat up to peer at him incredulously.  Was he being serious or sardonic? He caught Lando meeting his curious gaze.  “Not that I anticipate that happening again,” Lando added. There was a definite glint of exasperated humor in his eyes, but there was nothing trite about his tone.  Luke had to conclude he was sincere in his concern about how he’d nearly plummeted to his death. It was a wonder anything had broken his fall down there, let alone an air current.

He hadn’t even been hoping for it the moment he’d decided to jump.

It had taken Luke some time to get used to the realization that Lando hadn’t only seen defeat and vulnerability in him when he’d pulled him to safety off the  _ Falcon’s _ hull.  That admiration didn’t manifest in overt flattery or reverence, though, as it did with many others.  Lando had simply granted him a deep yet quiet respect from the day they’d met, just for having survived such a crucible.  There’d been an almost astonishing ease to their friendship, quite different from the bond he’d formed with Han.

With the beer settling into his weary frame like a warm weight, Luke reclined again and let his head rest against Lando’s knee, and his eyes grew heavy when he felt fingers gently play through his hair.

When Luke finally managed to nod off, he dreamed of a green paradise with wildflower-laden meadows and great waterfalls, and a young man and woman frolicking through them, carefree and joyful, their laughter ringing across the heavens.


End file.
